What Makes Your Prayer Powerful? (Praying From The New Covenant 2) Series

This is a continuation of the Praying From The New Covenant series. In my last message “Praying From Victory” as opposed to praying for victory, I mentioned that praying from victory is praying from the perspective of the finished work of Jesus on Calvary. And this is a perspective issue, it’s a mindset or mentality issue. Praying from victory is a New Testament mentality, because under the new covenant, we know that we already have all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, so we do not second-guess ourselves, we know that the power of the finished work and the resurrection of Jesus Christ is what guarantees the potency of our faith. On the cross, grace made all things available to us, at His resurrection, our faith was quickened to take what grace has made available.

Today we will be interrogating what exactly makes the believers prayer lethal, what element in the prayer makes it potent, powerful and effective.

In James 5:16b, “…the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much (makes power available)”. Here James says that it is the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man that produces or releases power that accomplishes things in through prayer, meaning that a righteous man’s prayer has power, and the nature of that prayer must be effectual and fervent if it must manifest powerful and produce results. Before we interrogate what makes the believer's prayer powerful, let's first understand who a righteous man is, because it is not the effectual fervent prayer of just about anyone that produces power, it is the effectual fervent prayer of a RIGHTEOUS MAN that produces power, so he must be a man not an angel (angels don't pray because they were never redeemed), and that man must be righteous. So then, who is a righteous man?

Romans 4 tells us that Abraham believed God and it was accounted or credited to him as righteousness, that is, Abraham was considered a righteous man because righteousness was given to him on credit not debit. Abraham was spending what he didn’t have but shared in. Abraham’s righteousness was an IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS, but to the New Testament believer, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:30-31, that we have BEEN MADE the righteousness of God in Christ. In order words, we have righteousness, we’re not credited with righteousness, we have been made righteous. That’s the difference between Abraham’s righteousness and the New Testament believer’s righteousness. We are righteous not because of what we did right or didn’t do wrong, we are righteous because of what Jesus did on the cross for us, He MADE us right. To be right righteous means to be RIGHT BY GOD. And this is not a behavioral or character issue, it is a nature issue. So our righteousness is not a function of our good behavior or performance, but is a function of what Jesus did for us on the cross, He through His death, burial and resurrection MADE us righteous, so we are His righteousness In Christ. Just like no man is a sinner because of the sins they committed but because we were all born sinners from the sin nature of Adam, so also we have now been made righteous (if we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ) not because of what we did right but because of the new nature that we now have in Christ- His nature of righteousness. The faithfulness of the shepherd is never predicated on the behavior of the sheep, but is predicated on the NATURE of the shepherd, so the righteousness of the believer is not predicated on the behavior of the believer but is predicated on the NATURE of the one in whom we have believed - Christ Jesus the Lord! 🙌

This is who a righteous man is, the one who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ and has been made the righteousness of God, not the one who thinks he is righteous because of good behavior. Our good behavior equates to nothing but filthy rags in the sight of God, so we cannot claim righteousness on the grounds of our good behavior but on the nature of the One who has MADE us righteous.

So, the effectual fervent prayer of a man who knows that he is right in the sight of God not by his good behavior or good deeds but by the nature of the Christ in him, this is a righteous man.

We have established who a righteous man is, now let’s see What makes the prayer of this righteous man effectual and fervent.

The power of the believer or righteous man’s prayer is REVELATION! That is, the revelation knowledge of the word of God and of the finished work of Jesus on Calvary that you have is what makes your prayer powerful.